I’m currently subscribed to 104 RSS feeds. My bloglines is sometimes a bit overwhelming as I peruse content from around the blogosphere. One of the blogs that I always read, no matter how busy I am, is the MIT Admissions Blog(s). The site is written by several MIT students and staffers. I love the breadth and depth of the content on the MIT Admissions Blog. Blog posts are full of student stories, campus and event photographs, and important procedural processes.

In my opinion, it’s the premier admissions blog in the United States in terms of content, diversity of bloggers, comments, and overall aesthetics. A Google search for “admissions blog” places the MIT Admissions blog in the 4th spot on the results page, just below the Oregon State University Admissions blog.

A recent post on the MIT Admissions blog on a talk by Noam Chomsky contains a wonderful mix of text and photographs.

Ben Jones, the MIT Director of Communications, even posted his own, custom made Lolz Catz post!

I think this student-written post on Application Cycles is a wonderful example of informing students about application policies while simultaneously telling a narrative of what it’s like to be a student at MIT.

The MIT Admissions Office has set the admissions blogging bar at a high level. It’s a wonderfully constructed group blog that is impressive within and outside of the admissions blogging context.

The 2007 batch of first-year medical students at the University of Missouri-Columbia is the least racially diverse in recent history.

We are constantly concerned and aware if we don’t mirror the population of the state, and we just keep working at it,” William Crist, dean of the medical school, said. “Fortunately, in big systems we try to view how well we’re doing not by a single class. You look at four-year periods because by chance you can get an unlucky year.”

Dear Dr. Crist, “chance” and “luck” have nothing to do with the intentional recruitment and support of students of color. Citing that the reason that Black enrollment is low because of the number of medical school applications by Black students does not answer the question of “why” the number of applicants is low. Maybe you could ask why the number of white student applications is so high? Is it luck? Perhaps it is because the system is biased towards white students…?

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Admissions 2.0:
Dan and Blake will be facilitating a web conference in April (Tuesday, 4/24/07) entitled, “Getting Started with Search Engine Optimization in Admissions”

Admissions directors, enrollment managers, marketers, and web editors will leave this web conference with cost-effective ideas on how to make their admissions websites more search engine-friendly and easier for prospective students to find. Participants will explore principles of search engine optimization and web analytics and develop an understanding of how to use these tools to make informed decisions on the content and formatting of their admissions websites.

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Enroll-A-Tron 3042:
In what appears to be the first viral video aimed at Enrollment Management Directors / Admissions Directors, Frank Meester debuts the “Enroll-A-Tron 3042.” The device is
guaranteed to help enrollment management professionals recruit and retain students at an amazing 100% retention rate. The video is pretty funny and it will be interesting to see if enrollment management folks find humor in a 15 billion dollar, ductwork/old server-based, grant-funded, device

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Tuition and Legislation:
Arizona lawmakers recently passed a law that denies in-state tuition to undocumented students. Undocumented students will now have to pay the out-of-state tuition rate at Arizona’s public institutions. The cost for out-of-state tuition is about 3 times as much as in-state tuition.

Affirmative Action and admissions:

“University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor John Wiley told a legislative committee reviewing affirmative action Thursday that high school grades and test scores aren’t good predictors of a student’s performance in college.”

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The recent evisceration of affirmative action in Michigan has created a huge problem for admissions staff at the University of Michigan, Wayne State University and Michigan State University. The constitutional amendment in Michigan becomes an official part of the state’s constitution on December 22nd. Admissions applications and financial aid packages which were considered while affirmative action was on the books will now need to be modified to meet the new anti-affirmative-action-racist-sexist-white-supremacist-amendment.

The Michigan Attorney General has warned the University of Michigan, Wayne State University and Michigan State University that any attempts to delay the implementation of the new anti-affirmative-action-racist-sexist-white-supremacist-amendment via lawsuits will be “vigorously” challenged.

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• A primer on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) at ProBlogger.
• My new Threadless tees:
  • Haikus are easy
  • Lost a wheel
  • Loch Ness Imposter
• A building in Rome that eats smog
• Do you believe in leprechauns?
• Kevin likes technology AND student affairs
• Blogs and Books can change Admissions policies

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the Oregon University System Application Fee Deferral Form. The deferral form allows students with high financial need to defer their admissions application fee ($50) at an Oregon University System School.

I decided to rank each of the state schools in Oregon on the basis of whether or not the fee deferral form was readily available on their websites. Initially, the Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT) received a ranking of 0 out of 10 since the fee deferral form was nowhere to be found on their website. 4 days after that post I received a comment from Palmer Muntz, the Director of Admissions at OIT, informing me that a link to the fee deferral form would be added to the OIT Admissions website.

Yesterday, I received an email from Palmer. The Oregon Institute of Technology is now a perfect 10/10. The fee deferral form can be found on the OIT Admissions Application Forms page.

From the OIT Admissions website:

If it is a financial hardship for you to pay the application fee, you may qualify to have the fee deferred until after you have enrolled at OIT.

I feel that Southern Oregon University and the Oregon Institute of Technology are doing the right thing by prominently providing this piece of information to students who have high financial need. The University of Oregon is not far behind. With a little web editing, the fee deferral form would be even easier to find…

Eastern Oregon University, Oregon State University, Portland State University, and Western Oregon University need to provide prominent links to the OUS fee deferral form. The amount of students who use the form would not cause significant monetary loss. The fee is deferred. Students would still pay the fee after they receive their financial aid packages.

Adding information about the OUS deferral form should be an easy decision for all OUS Schools.

Kudos to Palmer and the Admissions staff at OIT!